The Next intelligent life form?
 

After watching a bit of Animal Planet, reasearchers and biologists say the mollusks will produce the next intelligent lfie form if the humans were to leave earth and not interfere. Why?

octopus have amazing awarness of there surroundings, are millions of years ahead of the rest of the mollusks, and have unique charcteristics such as mimicing other animals by its own mind (it isn't born with the genes to look like a plant.)

Any other thoughts?

And for goofiness, do you think something else will be the next intelligent life form?

well honestly, I'm against the whole genetic evolution thing, but if it were true, I'd say we'll destroy the planet before any of that happens

Was that that special where everyone leaves Earth, and the octupi rule? A big one the size of an elephant, etc, etc? I think I saw that.

Seems plausible enough...but I would guess some other form of ape would take over, something that could use tools.

illithids, anyone? And that last sentence leaves some religous overtones, but I shall utter a prayer to shiney so that he doesn't come yell at you. *prays*

and I utterly hope it's something NOT hideous and scary-looking. maybe a bird of some kind... if they develop arms somehow besides their wings, that could be fun...

Lucerin Red WTF
 

Not to be a complete asshole, but that whole thread is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. For one; you CANNOT be against genetic evolution, that like saying " I am against aging." Or "Im against eating." It has to happen, its going to happen, it HELPS the species, so don't say your against somehing.

Also why do you have to be so cynical about the planet getting destroyed by us I highly doubt the destruction of earth will be directly linked to something we've done. Sure, currently earth is in shit condition, and theres the whole greenhouse gas thing, and the wars, and chemical warfare,and nomatter what you want to think the cold war is still happening, anyhoo, in the past few years, though it hasnt been big in the news that much, but cleaner ways to do things is happening, my friends dad is being funded by the canadian government to make a solar powered car and drive it accross canada side to side, and if they made that cheap and mass produced it, the gas problem would be over. you just have to have faith that we're working it out.

yes, if anything..i believe terrorists will destroy the world SO much that we're going to have to start over from the beginning in evolution..(more on the bottom)

well, anyway i think...like almost all people that some kind of primate will be the next intelligent species. "planet of the apes" anyone??

here's my idea how we go back in the evolution scale(with having to re-learn everything and stuff)..first, many people get killed off by a wide spread virus or disease...then possibly war escalates during this..then, while this is happening, terrorists will be able to gain control of nuklear weapons and will blow up the entire world enough to
1. make people only care about themselves
2. generation teachings to young kids will be abolished
3. the nuklear weapons will kill most of world population

but...anyway, i think then that primates will take over the world as the most intelligent species...hence PLANT OF THE APES....think what YOU want...this is what I think..hee hee

It all depends on how one defines 'intelligent,' really.
Human being have brains 'developed' enough to use tools and write literature and fuck the environment. I think that is just one kind of intelligence that an animal can have, really.
If you mean the next animal to gain sentience, it could be anything, especially since sentience is difficult to define.
I think computers might become sentient if enough programmers let their curiosity get ahead of them before they realize there is almost no application for a sentient computer, but that goes against the whole human interference thing.

Apart from that, I think cephalopods are invertebrates best bet, but it could just as likely be apes, dolphins, dogs, elephants or just about anything with a well developed nervous center.
I find most birds and reptiles unlikely, though. Their frontal lobes aren't well developed enough.

I gotta go with Raccoons. Those little buggers have opposable thumbs, large brains, are omnivorous (seriously, these things can catch and eat songbirds), use tools, and gang up to kill larger predators than themselves. If we were out of the way, I'm pretty sure they'd start wiping out other animals.

I for one, think it is all up to chance, ala good old genetic mutation, because most evolution is just random genetic malfunction based on ones enviroment.

A good example is Sickle Cell Anemia. Did you know that people with SCA cannot get Malaria? Thats because the sickle cells cannot support the little parasites that cause it. Do you know where Sickle Cell originated? Places where Malaria is common, like Africa and South America.

Of course, by the time we die off and another non-extraterrestial sentient species becomes the dominent species it really matter because the Earth will be rendered unlivable by an organism.

Why you ask?

Well, according to scientific projections, in about 5000 years the moon will swing out of its orbit and Earth's axis will spin wildly out of control.

Or, if that doesn't happen, according to scientific projections, the sun will burn out in 10,000 years.

Uhm... you forgot to add ",000" to all of your numbers.

Genetic malfunction coupled regular inherited traits.
That's why we have sexual reproduction; more genetic variation.

1st: You mean 'Post'. Not 'Thread'.
2nd: If you're going to attempt to correct someone, make sure your own post is legible, and not a stupid rant. Also, despite your disclaimer, you were being a jerk.
3rd: Lucerin Red CAN be against the concept of benevolent genetic mutation (i.e. evolution) in that he, oh say, DOESN'T belive that it occurs. He wasn't arguing the issue, however. He merely stated his belife. So, uh, ease up.
4th: It helps your point, not to prove someone else's point for them, as your entire last paragraph has done. (The last sentence "you just have to have faith that we're working it out" notwithstanding... like, at all).


On Topic:
I, too, don't belive in evolution, but for the sake of discussion, I'd doubt that an inteligence on par with the human brain would arise in that scenario. Doesn't seem nessecery in the natural world, and humans have been the only creatures to exhibit brain activity that is this sophisticated. It seems that some are eager to point to animal inteligence, and that is fine, but from what I've learned, nothing compares to the complexity of the human brain by a long shot, and even if I belived in evolution, I still don't think anything ever would.

As far as dominant/most inteligent life forms though... that'd be a tough call. Aquatic mammals seem like prime canidates - Dolphins, Seals, Orca whales, and the like. Except for apes, most land animals don't seem to have much more to go on than instinct and 'cute'.

I think I'm still waiting for the majority of the human race to become the current intelligent life on this planet....

*rimshot*

Given enough time, ability to breed and produce viable offspring, survive conditions and predators and the like, I'd have to go with... one of the many species of parrot. They live for long periods of time, can learn new patterns as well as communications, are somewhat omnivorous, and are very intelligent (as far as "sub-human" goes) already.

Didn'y you read my post? My racoons will totally eat your parrots before they get a chance to evolve!

Ok, maybe not (racoons eat tiny songbirds, like budgies and sparrows), but still, there's a lot of animals that have the capacity for evolving sapient intelligence, which is really the ability to question. Surface area of the brain counts for this, since coherent thought occurs on the cerebral cortex, and a humans, when stretched out, covers like two square meters (hence all the wrinkly bits). A parrot's brain would have to expand considerably for that, a racoons less so. Sea mammals already have the brain mass thing down, but unless a different type of neural structure develops, I think it's going to have to go to an animal that already has the brain size taken care off. Think.... giant raccoons doing cute things in their OWN garbace cans!

Uhh... Ya.

I think aquatic animals can have the brains but not the mobilty. They can't come on land. W don't have to fear them. Unless they evolve legs and a breathing system on land.

Humans get the land, fish get the sea, and the parrots get the air.

maybe in the future, the octopi shall transform into Illithid-like creatures, sentient, but on only able to live underwater(or cross the surface in short bursts) with a second inteligent speices surviving on the surface.

also, I am against evolution as well. HOWEVER: the point of this thread is NOT to post our beliefs. I posted mine to be THE LAST ONE hopefully. there is a BAN on posting religous discussions. since the basis is either a) we came from animals, B) we came from aliens, or c) we came from god, it's not possible to discuss evolution beliefs without bringing religon into it. I believe attempting to disprove religon would count as well. so no more talk about whether it could or couldn't happen, let's try talking about some of the random life forms that might result hypothetically.

my money is on octupi and Raccoons forming an alliance in the far future to destroy the parrot people of Mojo-bijawa.

probably, once you removed all primates, you'd have mollusks, MAYBE, but the way things are going, with that bonobo chim, Kanzi, it seems likely that in several thousand years, humans will be something else, and chimp-type things will become more like humans.

For those who don't know, Kanzi is a chimp who can use a pictographic language to communicate with people, and by some bizarre twist of fate, managed to spontaneously gain the ability to understand auditory english.
There's a philosopher called Leibniz who believed that there was a heirarchy of minds in which stuff like grass are sentient, animals are sentient and have memory, and humans are sentient with memory, rationality, and reflection. So, if you take that in mind, you could say that Kanzi has managed to fall somewhere between humans and animals.
My theory is that certain animals haven't got the physical capacities to be like humans, yet are standing on a neverending staircase that goes up an evolutionary pathway, or somesuch. Maybe you'll understand, I'm not sure I've worded y thoughts correctly.

edit: please note that I have not at any point mentioned religion, and that I do not talk about the origins of anything, simply the future of some things. Though I find it hard to believe that anyone could deny the fact that things change.

Things change, but the fact is evolution has never been proven using the scientific method. (Please keep in mind that I believe in evolution, and am a Rational Deist). DNA has been examined, intermediary species have been discovered, but the fact is there are some parts of the human body which could not have evolved. They are simply too complex in their entirety to have evolved from a lesser state. Cilia are a good example... they are essentially functional microscopic living organisms, and yet they are a part of our basic cellular structure. They are so complex that they could not have evolved one piece at a time... missing one organelle renders the entire structure useless. This is something seen where microorganisms form colonies which eventually turn into life forms like cilia, but that can't have happene, since cilia are coded into our DNA.

I'm not saying I'm a creationist, I'm just saying the questions havent all been answered.

Just so that we don't start/continue presenting our points in such a way that will get all of our butts banned, and this thread closed, I hereby declare that I have discovered a loophole.

Do not DISCUSS religious or evolutionary issues.
First off, the thread topic indicates that you must suspend your disbelief if you don't believe in evolution. It's a thread about the evolution of octopi for crud's sake. No need to argue creationism in a thread about evolution. It's like a declaration of war.
Keep in mind that this is the General Discussion forum, not the Discussion forum. If the first post suggests something you don't agree with, rather than post your disagreement, simply ignore the post. OR, be a nice person and humour them. You're trying to add to the topic, not refute it.

Secondly (here's the loophole) As Brian said in his post in the discussion forum, there is to be no discussion of religion. He says that you don't have to abandon all talk of religion. So, my theory is that if you feel you MUST say something about your religion, say it, but don't contrast it with something someone else said. Y'see that constitutes discussion. Sadly, this thrusts anyone who wants to mention their religion into a vast pile of non-sequitors (the not funny kind). That said, it'd probably be easier not to mention religion at all.

If someone with a better understanding of the rules wants to put me in my place, that's fine. this thread may belong in the discussion forum as it is. It may also be prime for a closing, as the topic has sort of fallen into a tubesock of destruction...or rather, has gone slightly off-topic.

You say the next smart life? Well, I wouldn't call humans smart, looking at the world at the moment...

I just wanted to point out something I noticed earlier: Whoever said people with sickle cell anemia are immune to malaria, you're wrong. They have a heightened resistance against malaria, because the parasite can't survive within the sickled cells.

And that's really only the heterogenous SCA carriers, because the homogenous ones tend to...well...die from SCA. As population's as concerned, though, it does help fight the disease.

The next smartest lifeform? A silly question. We don't know what genes give us sentience or free will. Our guess? Most would say huge ass brains. They're probably right, but that's a really big generalization that no one can delve any further into (yet).

Next smartest? Jeez...roll some dice and pick one. That's how good your guess will be. (Though, I did like WW's choice). I'd also like to think chipmunks become the next sentient lifeforms, then I can only hope they enslave us, and force us to work in their nut farms.

Note: The only thing that is theory about evolution is whether or not it's what created life up to this point. We know evolution does happen, we just don't know if it DID happen.

Or, in simpler terms, we can prove evolution and even have very strong evidence supporting speciation. We've even witnessed speciation in bacterium.

However: We do not know that monocellular organisms can evolve into multicellular organisms, for sure. We do not have proof that humans, carp, or cute little puppy dogs are the results of evolution or if they were created.

Fortunately, whether or not single cellular beings can evolve into multicellular ones isn't the subject of discussion here. It's which multicellular organism with an already decently developed brain will become the next sapient species if given enough time.

So, creationism and evolution are not ideas which have to be completely exclusionary. Especially in this topic.

So, let's not bring up how we don't believe in evolution anymore or how creationists are silly, ok?

psst, what about when babies are made? Single cellular becomes into multicellular.
*cough* I'm just gonna stop posting here.

edit: I said I'd stop posting, so here's what I WOULD be saying. "whaaa? since when does sexual reproduction have anything to do with creationism?
I'd hate to think that my muchsexing had some kind of religious mandate....or something."

And thats an example of creationism. No religion! ;)